Success of Sensory Evoked Potentials in Patients with Median Compression Syndrome and Additional Neuropathy

Abstract

Conventional EMG and peripheral nerve conduction studies are common in detection of peripheral nerve lesions. In severe traumatic lesions of peripheral nerves sensory nerve action potentials may not be recordable for many weeks. In some patients additional neuropathies, such as toxic polyneuropathy, influence the interpretation of electrophysiological measurements. Sensory evoked potentials (SEP) may be used to document sensory nerve continuity when sensory nerve action potentials are unrecordable because they are too small or too desynchronized. The ability to monitor SEP in the absence of a sensory nerve action potential implies that incoming peripheral signals have been amplified within the CNS [2, 5].